


Please Please Please

by aradian_nights



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Chapter 55, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aradian_nights/pseuds/aradian_nights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's dead," Urie said. "Dead people don't need jackets."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Please Please

**Author's Note:**

> i prompted fem [this](http://femoralynn.tumblr.com/post/134358998392/asexualsuzuya-who-suggested-i-draw-this-and) while i was writing this, and it inspired me even more to write it. i only just finished it bc of school though. anyway, this was something i needed to get out of my system since. u know. i'm a shirazu stan. and i'm hurt. so i make that hurt worse i guess.

Thoughts that were once so very frequent had died down, faded out, like some awkward thumbs had hit the mute button by mistake.

Mute. Everything was on mute.

His thoughts. His words. The words that came out of the mouths of everyone around him. The footsteps. The shouts. The sirens.

The only thing that didn't seem to be muted was this feeling inside him that something crucial had just been ripped out and crushed.

People wanted to talk to him. They wanted to know. About?

About what?

"What?"

About…?

"Rank 1, you dealt the final blow didn't you? Rank 1? Rank 1? Rank 1…?"

"No. What? No. It wasn't me."

"But—"

"It wasn't me. Okay. I—" The lights were making the world spin round and round and round, a strobe fantasy, a lucid dream. Like a rave you couldn't walk out of, or a nightmare you couldn't escape, where all the music was up so high that it was just white noise. And how can you really tell if white noise exists? "I didn't… do anything… it was Shirazu. Shirazu did it. Write that down! Shirazu Ginshi killed the SS rated ghoul."

His own voice was on mute. He felt like he couldn't even hear the words that came pouring out of his mouth, so he felt the need to shout them.

It was Shirazu.

It was all Shirazu.

Didn't anyone care at all?

The world was spinning. It was going way too fast, and he couldn't keep up. He just wanted to take a break. To take a breath. To stand still for a little while.

But if he did that, the ground would be torn out from under him, and he would fall behind and behind and behind.

Somehow that didn't seem so scary anymore.

Strobe lights. Wasn't that a funny thought? Like a party.

That was fitting.

Comforting.

In the back of his waterlogged mind, he had a thought.

_Shirazu,_ he thought,  _are you loving every second of this?_

He wandered through the lines of parked ambulances, his feet guiding him toward the rows and rows of covered up dead bodies. One of the EMTs stopped him, and there were words exchanged, but they felt muddled in his head. He couldn't quite grasp what was happening, but he pointed, and he asked, and suddenly he was given.

It had been an impulse. A simple request by a simple man. He didn't know anything about anyone, especially not himself.

The jacket was damp in places where the blood had soaked through. He held it gingerly, as though he was cradling a broken child, and he turned from the EMT without thanking them. He walked, shell shocked, away from the dead bodies and the flashing lights.

He found Saiko. Or maybe Saiko found him.

She took one look at the jacket, and she screamed.

She screamed loud and she screamed hard and she screamed like she was willing to give all the air in her lungs up to the smoggy sky.

"Put that back!" she cried, her face still red and splotchy from the hour of nonstop tears. She looked like she needed to cry again, but he knew that the only reason she wasn't still crying was because all of her tears had been used up. "Th-that's—! That's Shiragin's! That's not yours, that's—!"

"He's dead," Urie said. He didn't mean it unkindly. He didn't mean it in any way. He just said it because it was the truth, and he didn't know how else to handle that fact. But Saiko's face folded up and crumpled, and he felt like his insides were being jabbed with a dagger over and over. "Dead people don't need jackets."

"It's still Shirazu's, Urie," Mutsuki said quietly. He had his hand on Saiko's back, trying to calm her down as she drew quick puffs of air. She was hyperventilating from the oxygen the sobbing had deprived from her. "He… he should get to keep it… especially now…"

"We're not burying him in this ratty ass jacket," Urie said. Or maybe he didn't say it. Maybe he yelled it.

He didn't know. He could not tell the volume of his own voice. Was that scary? Was that strange?

This was such a familiar feeling. Loss was such a familiar fiend. It had grown up alongside him. It had took his face in its hands, kissed his forehead, and told him all the truths he needed to know.

The only way anyone would ever mourn him was if he became someone worth crying over.

Nobody remembered the meek and the weak and the timid and the soft spoken.

If (when) Mutsuki died, they would have only kind words to say. And then they would forget his name the next day.

If (when) Saiko died, they would lament and lament, on and on and on, about potential, how it could be wasted, and how power can be placed in the ill-suited hands. How could anyone be so remarkable and utterly unremarkable at the very same time? They would all think it. Mutter it under their breaths.

If (when) Urie died, would anyone even care?

If Urie had died instead (which he should have), would Saiko have bawled her eyes out? Would she have begged and pleaded and screamed?

There was no way of knowing. What could have been? It was all just a blur. He could almost feel it, like exposed wires, the distant thrum of another universe brightening and brightening until it burnt itself out.

If it had been the other way around, would anyone have cried for him?

Shirazu would have.

And that, perhaps, was the worst fucking part.

Because nobody could care about Shirazu like Shirazu had cared about everyone else.

"I'm going home," Urie said suddenly.

"Alone?" Mutsuki gasped. "Wait. Hey. Urie, please, wait for us!"

"Just call me when you get ahold of Sasaki."

"Urie, please, wait for us!"

He didn't even remember getting into a cab. He was lucky if he even remembered saying those words.

It was all just an awful goddamn blur.

Where to, sir?

White noise.

Where  _to_ , sir?

Was a home really a home when the door was missing?

When the roof was half caved in?

When the floor threatened to collapse beneath them?

Home was a concept, not a thing.

It was like a house of cards, and that ghoul had plucked a card from the base and forced it all to crash to the ground.

And he didn't know how to deal with it.

He didn't know how to deal with any of this.

Wasn't that just his fucking problem? That he had no idea how to deal?

Death was too much. It set him over the edge. It reminded him how mortal he was, how selfish and cruel and disgusting he truly was.

But it inspired him too.

Cut ties, win more battles, become stronger. That was how the game was played.

That was how he'd come to this. This jarring rush of emotion being poured into a hollow shell. He didn't know what to do or how to think or what to feel. Everything in him was fighting everything about him. He was lost.

He found himself opening the door of the Chateau, not really wanting to, but moving on muscle memory. It was strange to be overtaken by a rush of clarity.

Everything seemed so empty here.

Here was the explanation.

This house had always felt too damn huge.

Too big, even, for just five people.

Or was it four now?

There was so much space between him and the stairs, and from the stairs there was so much space between him and the hall, and from the hall there was so much space between him and his room. And on his way to his room, he would pass by an open door, and find an empty space that would never be filled again.

Urie's back bumped up against the door, and he covered his mouth with his hand. The scent of blood immediately filled up the back of his throat, and he dropped Shirazu's jacket.

He slid down to the floor.

This drifting he was doing in his head did not match up with the way he wanted to lie down and never get up again.

All of his work. All of his hard work, his pushing, his prying, his willing to be strong enough, and in the end it had meant  _nothing_. All that he was, all that he could be, was just drifting off like smoke.

He could almost smell it. Beneath the coppery thickness of blood in the air, on his skin, he could taste the staleness of cigarettes.

Urie blinked. His vision had made the whole darkened entrance of the Chateau seem bleary. Where was that scent coming from? It was so faint, like a dampening memory that was fading quickly, fraying at the edges, bleeding its ink and becoming unrecognizable. It was a ghost in the air, and he felt like it was so distinct that he could reach out and he could touch it. He felt that it was so obscure that he could be losing his mind.

Moving seemed like an impossible feat. He'd never felt so spent in his whole life, and that seemed impossible, because pain was no stranger to him. He felt it, and it became nothing. It was as fleeting as the words that spilt from the mouths of his teammates. Nothing lasted forever. Not their words, not their laughter, and certainly not their love.

But sitting here, back pressed up to the door, his hands bloody and shaking, he thought he'd never felt so tired.

So ill with aches.

Like he might just vomit and lie down in it.

But the nausea died, and the scent of smoke lingered, and he inhaled sharply.

It was like it was really there. It tickled his nose.

The revelation struck him suddenly, and he snatched up Shirazu's jacket. Somehow it was still damp.

He gathered it up in his shaky fingers, and he pulled it close. His pressed his face into the hood, fur kissing his cheeks like feathers, and he inhaled the scent.

It didn't smell anything like death.

The smell was thick and vivid, distinct in the way that handwriting stretched and blotted and wilted along with a person's hand. It was the collision of aromas, of wintery shampoo and mint mouthwash and washing detergent. It was soft and warm and imbedded with the chapped, wasted smell of old cigarette smoke, a disgusting scent that made him feel sick more often than not. But right now, he thought it was the most beautiful smell in the world. It was clinging, hanging on by its nails, and cloaking the scent of blood. The jacket was shielded from the smell of death. It was Shirazu. Every little trace of it.

If he could possibly relax at a time like this, it was only because of the reassurance that scent gave him.

He never in a million years thought that he would be clinging to the smell of Shirazu's hair and skin and clothes like it would keep him from unravelling, but he was, and he did, and it hurt.

Never in a million years did he think he'd have a reason to miss Shirazu.

Never in a million years did he think he'd fear the mere idea of forgetting this scent.

When would it happen?

A week? A month? A year? Ten years?

Would there be a time when Urie could not recall what Shirazu's voice sounded like? Or what the jaunty shuffling of his gait by his side had felt like? Or what his bright, unconventional smile had looked like? Or what this awful fucking jacket smelled like?

There would be a time. He knew it, and it made him clutch the fabric tighter.

The world was on mute. His scream was muffled by downy fur, by the reminiscence of feathers. It seemed as though it didn't even make a sound. It had been released from his mouth and scattered about the air like sand. Struck still. Stuck last.

He wanted and he wanted and he wanted. More and more and more.

And now Urie wanted what he could never have again.

Every thought in his head was poisoning him. And in truth, there were not many to begin with.

So the words that had been on mute, the few of them that had drifted to the surface of his waterlogged brain, were drumming hard and fast upon his fragile skull.

_Are you happy?_

Just a few words. One two three.

And then again.

_Are you happy? You got what you always wanted. He's gone now. Die in peace. Rest in peace. Be at peace. He's gone now. This is what you wanted. This is peace. He's gone now. What? Is this not what you wanted? He's gone now. You don't get to feel pitiful. You don't get peace._

_You don't get to feel anything._

_You didn't mind before._

_Not feeling._

_So now you don't get to feel anything._

_You don't deserve to feel anything._

_Feeling is a goddamn privilege, Kuki._

_He's gone now._

_And all you are allowed to feel is regret._

_Are you happy?_

He thought he might have forgotten what happiness feels like.

As expected, he didn't make it up to his room. The next morning, he woke up on the floor. Of course he knew he must have slept at some point, but he had no recollection of the act, when it had started or even when it had stopped. He had slept a dreamless sleep. It weighed on him, pinned his aching limbs to the ground.

Yes, he remembered what had happened.

No. He didn't accept it.

He had no reason to accept that everything had changed.

Did he have to change too?

When he finally pried himself from the floor, his limbs were stiff and locked. The blood on his hands was dry and flaky, crimson dust that cracked and coughed when his palm creased into a fist. Urie trudged toward the kitchen, his knees wobbly, and he tossed Shirazu's coat onto the counter. He kicked open a cabinet and plucked the bottle of vodka from the top shelf. It felt abnormally light, so he swished it around. He unscrewed the bottle and tipped it over the sink.

A drop fell out.

"Thanks, Saiko," he muttered. He threw the bottle into the sink, not fully receiving the sound of the resonating crash as the bottle burst into a dozen opaque shards.

There was sake, rum, and cognac. The cognac was the fullest and the most expensive and Urie knew he wouldn't know how to scream at Sasaki the way he wanted to, the way that would make it hurt, make it count, and as far as he could see this was the best option, so he took it.

He'd gotten drunk before. Once. It had happened when he'd been younger, brighter, and full of curiosity. His father had caught him.

And instead of getting angry, as his twelve year old heart had feared, his father had poured two shots of whiskey and slid one to Urie.

Urie had never felt any need to drink again. There was no thrill to it.

It just reminded him of what he'd lost.

Numbly, he poured the cognac into a glass. He slid the glass toward the jacket, and he watched it. The morning sun peeped in tentatively through the window, making screens of dust erupt in a ray of light. The trickling of white sunlight was so blinding and yet so dim, it seemed to be an immaculate contradiction.

"To your promotion," Urie told the coat thickly, raising the crystal bottle by its neck, his fingers so tight he could strangle it. "I'll get there some day."

_And then you won't be scared anymore._

Urie tipped the bottle back and downed it.

_You won't be alone anymore_.

Later, Urie woke up in his room. The scent of cigarettes made his head swim. He felt dizzy and sick. He didn't remember going up the stairs, but here he was, his face half pressed into Shirazu's hood, the cognac bottle wrung of life at the tips of his fingers.

Mute was still on. It made the whole room fuzzed up, like a child's watercolor picture. Every speck of color in sight was faded, and every opaque object bled into its surroundings. Sounds passed like hums through inch thick walls.

"Go away," he found himself saying.

Words. He processed them, but not truly.

"Leave."

The volume budged. It turned up. Little by little.

"…know you don't want to talk to me… but… please… we need to stick together right now… especially right now…"

"Go."

His head was all filled up with water. Someone had hollowed out his eyes in his sleep. Scooped them right out, spooned up his brains from the two gaping holes, and had proceeded to use a funnel to pour water into his empty skull.

His mind was waterlogged and heavy.

"... Fine."

Urie raised an eye.

Mutsuki looked two dimensional. Thin and wispy, like a breath of smoke.

When he turned his back, Urie sensed emotions there that he knew he'd never be able to reach or replicate.

"Sasaki is gone," Mutsuki informed him, stopping at the door.

Urie found himself rising into an upright position, his hand flying to his head as the room fluttered and shifted and crashed onto its side. He rubbed the tender, mauve skin beneath his eyelids.

"What?" he croaked.

Mutsuki glanced back at him tiredly.

"We don't know what happened to him," he said, his voice dreary and distant. It was a ghost of a voice.

Maybe they were all ghosts.

Ghosts of people they'd once been, ghosts of people they'd never be, ghosts of people they wished they could be, ghosts of people the pretended to be.

The only one who'd ever been alive was Shirazu.

Now wasn't that some fucking irony?

"… He's dead?" Urie said the words, clipped and slightly slurred. He blinked, trying to clear his mind, trying to make sense of this all, all of it, all of the bad stuff that he was avoiding. Or was he just wallowing? He couldn't turn the thoughts or the senses or the feelings back on.

"He's MIA." Mutsuki's voice was shaky. Even Urie could see that he was shaking. Had he cried? At least he hadn't witnessed it. Urie would never get the words out of his head. The pained rasp of Shirazu's pleading voice. Even long after Urie forgot what his voice sounded like, what his smile looked like, what his gait felt like, what his clothes smelled like, he would remember the desperate begging of a dying boy, sinking slow into his arms.

_I'm scared_ …

Urie had never felt fear quite like this.

"Good riddance," Urie said.

"You don't mean that."

He didn't.

It was just that he could reach the anger he knew he should be feeling.

He couldn't reach anything but the shuddering regret and the throttling fear.

Urie sat on his bed. He stared at Mutsuki's back.

"What," he said thickly, his voice drawing out and up and left and right and all around, "exactly do you want me to do?"

Mutsuki turned slowly to face him. "Saiko won't come out of her room," he said. "It's been almost a whole day."

"So."

"She can't stay in there."

"Why not?"

"Because she can't!"

"I don't see nothin' wrong with it." Urie blinked. He covered his mouth as he hiccupped, and he tossed the cognac bottle onto the rug. It didn't break, which was dissatisfying. "Mm. No. Fuck. I don't see  _any_ thing wrong with it."

"She needs to eat."

"She'll eat when she wants to."

"What if that's never?" Mutsuki sounded distant and insistent. "I can't do this. I can't handle losing all of you!"

"You never had me to begin with," Urie snapped.

Mutsuki jerked back. Urie stared, and he felt the familiar shuddering pang of regret.

"What?" Urie stood. "Should I… not have said that…? Did I hurt your feelings?"

"No." Mutsuki sounded so strange and solid. Urie hated it. He envied it. This stupid fucking boy… why could he remain calm in the most uncomfortable situations? Urie could not hold onto himself, but Mutsuki always seemed to fucking know how to stay composed.

"I should have. I wanted to." Urie squinted at him. He laughed, and it echoed off the walls and skittered across the floor, and it rippled through the water in his head. "Pathetic."

"You're drunk," Mutsuki told him in the type of voice that suggested Urie didn't already know. Like, what the hell? "You don't know what you're saying."

"I know what I'm saying. I just want you to know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying?"

"I'm not going to reason with you."

"Didn't ask."

Mutsuki raised his head. His chin was high.

"Do you hate me?" he demanded.

Urie buckled. Whoa! What a question!

He frowned. He leaned back, his neck arching and nearly touching his pillow before he dragged himself up again.

"No," he admitted. "I don't think I hate any of you."

"Then please," Mutsuki pleaded, "help me. I… I don't know how to hold this together. Not without Sasaki. Not without…"

"I'm not the leader," Urie murmured.

"You were. Once."

Urie watched the watercolors swirl upon his hand. Like salt applied to swathes of red. The blood was still there.

"I'm changed," he whispered.

"That doesn't mean you can't lead."

Urie didn't raise his eyes.

"Urie."

"I don't want it."

"I can't do this without you."

"Learn to be alone," Urie groaned, lowering his face into his bloody hands. "Just live with it!"

"I'm trying to keep us together! Someone has to…"

"Then  _you_  lead." Urie jumped to his feet, his fingers instinctively dragging Shirazu's coat behind him. While Mutsuki froze and breathed and stammered, Urie shoved past him. He tripped halfway down the stairs, catching the wall and swearing gruffly to himself. He found himself yanking Shirazu's jacket on and marching out the front door.

It slammed behind him.

He didn't walk very far. It was dark now, somehow, and he'd slept or dreamt or drank through the whole day, and he was sick on the muted edges of the dead city. Tokyo's lights, which he found too bright and too neon and too electric for his eyes, were dim and shivery like stars behind an overcast.

It was hard to imagine what tomorrow would be like, or tomorrow's tomorrow. He'd had a clear vision of his future until twenty four hours ago, but it seemed like he'd just been reduced to  _tabula rasa_  and had no clarity on anything.

Shirazu's coat was warm. It smelled like a ghost of him. And even through the swimming blots of his thoughts that could not be drowned out, he recognized the scent of cigarettes.

Urie had not even known Shirazu had smoked.

He plopped down on a curve, his head falling between his knees. Something slipped out of the pocket of the jacket.

Cautiously, he picked it up and thumbed it gingerly. He recognized the shape, and he struck it.

Warmth and light hit his face, illuminating the dingy street and the rusty blood caked to his hands.

The flame guttered out, and Urie stuffed his hands in Shirazu's pockets. He found an assortment of things, pulling them out one by one and letting them sit in his lap.

There was a pack of cards. It was a beaten old box, frayed at the edges from wear. There was a cellphone. When Urie checked it, it lit up and brightly declared that Shirazu had new messages. There was a switchblade, which seemed funny now, like a toy that children played with. It looked old and worn too, like it was less for protection and more for sentiment. There was a receipt for gummies from a corner store, and a post it note that read in Shirazu's uneven characters  _Make deposit, bill due. Consultation on 22_ _nd_ _._ There was a half chewed up pen and a pocketbook full of dates and numbers. There was a landyard with his Chateau key, discount keychains, and a lucky feather on the keyring. There was his wallet, which was practically empty save for his ID and an old movie ticket stub. Earbuds. A pack of cigarettes. A creased up school photo smudged with fingerprints of a young girl. On the back, a note of self-encouragement.

_You can do this!_

Urie beat the heel of his hand into his eye when a stray droplet hit the picture.

He stuffed everything back into the pockets except for the earbuds, the phone, the lighter, and the cigarettes.

Shirazu didn't have a passcode to his phone.

Even in death he was fucking typical.

Urie put the earbuds in, relaxing a little at the familiarity of them. He liked the world being muted a lot better when he had control of the mute button.

The last song Shirazu had listened to had been something from the… 90s? 80s? Urie liked music, he recognized the band's name even though he knew it was western. Was it American? British? Fuck if he knew.

The Smiths. The name was in English, and Urie did not recognize any words other than " _please_."

The phone suddenly began to buzz and ring and the tune was so jarring and upbeat and rattling that he dropped the phone and it clattered against the sidewalk.

Urie had to take deep breaths before he picked it up again, squinting blearily at the screen.

Sasaki's beaming face laughed at him, his glasses half hanging off his nose, his eyes crinkling with delight.

_Sassan is calling you_ …

Urie swallowed a lump in his throat as it buzzed and buzzed and buzzed.

The phone went limp in his hands. It ceased to move, the mutter, to breathe.

Urie's jaw clenched in rage. Sasaki left a message. Urie listened to it on mute.

It didn't count.

Apologies to a dead boy didn't count.

Urie tore open the box of cigarettes, plucked one out and put it in his mouth. He'd never smoked before, so he wasn't sure what to do if it didn't immediately light. He ran the flame over the end of it, inhaling and wincing, nearly reacting with a great upheaval of oak and honey and acid flavored vomit. But he held it in. And then he let it out.

He hit call back.

The cigarette smoldered between his thumb and forefinger as he brought the phone closer to his mouth.

It rung. It rung. It rung with a tone that echoed a flatline.

And then it wasn't ringing anymore.

" _Shirazu_?"

Breathless, boastless, blindness to how hopeless he was, Sasaki had answered. There was strain, and there was fear, and there was sorrow that could not be conveyed, and Urie had frozen up, because it did not sound like Sasaki. It was his voice, maybe, but it croaked and shook and begged.

What had happened?

"Unfortunately," Urie rasped, smoke billowing from his lips, "dead guys can't answer phones."

The other line was silent. Urie took a drag from the cigarette. It was awful. His eyes were watering. His chest felt tight. Cigarettes were terrible.

He didn't need Sasaki to answer. Just to listen.

"Mutsuki… he definitely wants you to come back," Urie hissed, his eyes narrowing at the streets. "I won't tell him. He won't know you called. I don't hate him enough to give him false hope."

" _Urie…_ "

"Thank you," Urie said, "for  _everything_. For being so perfect. For keeping us all so safe. For making as feel so fucking  _loved_ and  _important_." Urie's eyes prickled with unshed tears. It could have been from the smoke or the rage that was finally surfacing as the water began to drain. "Thank you for  _being there_  the one time you were actually fucking needed. Thanks. Thanks a whole fucking lot, First Class."

There was a breath, an inhale that sounded sharp and pained.

But no words.

Not even one.

No defense? Ha. Urie had expected nothing less.

So Sasaki would shoulder the blame. That was nothing new.

"All he wanted," he whispered, watching the fire lick brown swirls into the edge of the cigarette, "in the end, all he wanted was you. Did they tell you that? Before you ran away from us? He just wanted you. And you weren't there. You weren't there then, and you're not here now, so do us all a favor and never let us down again."

The world stretched on. It was a world of wanting and waiting and watching as those wants withered.

Sasaki spoke.

It was a voice of someone younger. Someone who didn't act like they knew all the answers.

" _You can say what you mean_ ," the defeated, boyish sounding Sasaki whispered. " _Say you want me to leave._ "

"You left already." Urie's lip trembled. "You left. You left him, and you left us. What I'm saying… what I'm saying is, don't come back. Don't give us a sense of false security. If you're not going to be there when it matters, then you don't get to be there  _at all_!"

The cigarette smoldered between his fingers. The phone ticked by the numbers, the seconds flooding by, the minutes inching away.

And then, a small voice answered in defeat.

" _Okay._ "

And that was all.

A simple syllable and no goodbye.

Just a flashing number to signal that the call had been three minutes and four seconds long.

It had felt like an eternity longer.

He would feel the call with him every step he took every day for possibly the rest of his life, however long that would be.

Urie expected the throttle of regret to take hold of him, but numbness had spread in the places were that feeling had manifested.

He took a deep breath, and he flung the cigarette across the road. The small glint of light sailed through the dark like a firefly.

And then it was snuffed out.


End file.
